Namib desert beetle inspired special patterned fabric with programmable and gradient wettability for efficient fog harvesting

Efficient collection of water from fog provides a potential solution to solve the global freshwater shortage problem, particularly in the desert or arid regions. In this work, a flexible and highly efficient fog collector was prepared by mimicking the back exoskeleton structure of the Namib desert beetle. The improved fog collector was constructed by a superhydrophobic-superhydrophilic patterned fabric via a simple weaving method, followed by in-situ deposition of copper particles. Compared with the conventional fog collector with a plane structure, the fabric has shown a higher water-harvesting rate at 1432.7 mg/h/cm(2), owing to the biomimetic three-dimensional structure, its enhanced condensation performance enabled by the copper coating and the rational distribution of wetting units. The device construction makes use of the widely available textile materials through mature manufacturing technology, which makes it highly suitable for large-scale industrial production. (C) 2021 Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of The editorial office of Journal of Materials Science & Technology.

Automated summary

Scientists have developed a flexible and highly efficient fog collector by mimicking the exoskeleton structure of the Namib desert beetle, with a superhydrophobic-superhydrophilic patterned fabric and copper particles, which has shown a higher water-harvesting rate and has the potential to alleviate freshwater shortage in arid regions.